Recovering Dad: A Bianca Balducci Mystery (Bianca Balducci Mysteries) - Softcover

Sternberg, Libby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1890862630 ISBN 13: 9781890862633

Publisher: Bancroft Press, 2008

Synopsis

It's Bianca Balducci's junior year in high school, and she's got more than enough on her plate―impending SAT scores, college admissions, and the mixed signals of sort-of-boyfriend Doug. But when she finds out her mother, widowed as long as Bianca can remember, plans to marry Officer Steve Paluchek, a longtime family friend, things get even worse very, very quickly―because Paluchek, according to Bianca's private-eye sister Connie, is the man responsible for the death of their police officer father. And so Bianca is pulled into her most personal case yet―learning, for the first time, who her father truly was, even as she tries to determine who killed him. Was it Paluchek? He does seem to have ties to the immigrant smuggling ring their father was investigating. Or was it Paluchek's partner? And can Bianca figure it out before an increasingly irrational Connie makes a fatal mistake? Recovering Dad is more than simply the third installment of the Bianca Balducci mystery series, and the best Bianca mystery to date.

About this title

About the Author

Libby Malin Sternberg was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland and is still in love with the city of crabcakes, steamy summers, and ethnic neighborhoods. (What's not to love about a city that names its football team after an Edgar Allan Poe character?)

Libby earned both bachelor's and master's degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and also attended the summer American School of Music in Fontainebleau, France.

After graduating from Peabody, she worked as a Spanish gypsy, a Russian courtier, a Middle-Eastern slave, a Japanese Geisha, a Chinese peasant, and a French courtesan--that is, she sang as a union chorister in both Baltimore and Washington Operas, where she regularly had the thrill of walking through the stage doors of the Kennedy Center Opera House before being costumed and wigged for performance. She also sang with small opera and choral companies in the region.

Alas, singing didn't pay all the bills so she turned to writing, working in a public relations office and then as a freelancer for various trade organizations and small newspapers.

During a period of self-unemployment, she took her sister's advice and decided to pursue an unfulfilled dream--writing fiction. Her first young adult novel, Uncovering Sadie's Secrets, was a nominee for the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe award from Mystery Writers of America. The second in that mystery series was released in hardcover in November 2004. A third mystery in the series was released in 2008. She's also written a historical YA mystery, The Case Against My Brother. She is the author of two women's fiction books (writing as Libby Malin)--Loves Me, Loves Me Not and Fire Me!--and is under contract for a third. All of her books have received critical acclaim.

For many years, she and her family lived in Vermont, where she worked as an education reform advocate, contributed occasional commentaries to Vermont Public Radio and was a member of the Vermont Commission on Women.

She is married, with three children, and now resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Review

The real draw to this story is Bianca's voice, which is strong, vibrant, confident, and vulnerable. Her insights into the emotional lives of other characters move the story along. With its light dose of teen issues, Recovering Dad is a good transition for fans of Nancy Drew to contemporary teen fiction. --School Library Journal

The mostly realistic and believable story moves quickly, aided by the quick-witted, first-person narrative. --VOYA (Leslie Wolfson)

What strikes the reader most about this series is just how all-American girl-next-door Bianca is. So many mysteries written for YAs have characters that are so much more courageous and intelligent than their readers; Bianca is a girl her readers will find familiar, like them . . . The sisters Balducci operate frequently out of emotion, not exactly cool reasoning, but that makes them all the more believable to YA readers. --Kliatt

The mostly realistic and believable story moves quickly, aided by the quick-witted, first-person narrative. --VOYA (Leslie Wolfson)

What strikes the reader most about this series is just how all-American girl-next-door Bianca is. So many mysteries written for YAs have characters that are so much more courageous and intelligent than their readers; Bianca is a girl her readers will find familiar, like them . . . The sisters Balducci operate frequently out of emotion, not exactly cool reasoning, but that makes them all the more believable to YA readers. --Kliatt

About this edition

• Publisher: Bancroft Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1890862630
• ISBN 13: 9781890862633
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256